GenPink

In exactly 10 days (and a few hours) I will be sitting on a panel with 4 other Gen Y voices at what will be my second adventure to SXSW. We are speaking on Why Gen Y Wants to Work “With” You, Not “For” You. Because our topic is so much about generation y as a whole, and the fact that we are not a fan of those who try to stereotype Gen Y, we’ve created a blog (well and actually a twitter & a Facebook fan page) and have been asking people to submit 2 minute videos with their thoughts on how managers can better connect with Gen Y.

I am so excited by the insight in all of the response’s we’ve received so far. It’s been fun to see how willing the gen y community is to get involved.

Jenny Blake who works in Career Development at Google was the first person to address both sides of the equation in her video. In doing so, she gives some great advice about Gen Y taking ownership of their career. Her exact words are “no one else is going to do it for you.” I could not agree more!

Check out Jenny’s video:

We’d love for you to submit your own video, or guest post if you’re not so much into video and let us know what you’d like to see from your managers. Follow sxsgeny.com to keep up with the conversation!

PS: If you’ll be at SXSW and we haven’t yet connected about meeting up, let me know!

Women’s Health Magazine asked their readers to leave comments with the best advice (both practical & silly) their mother has given. Mom’s are notorious for advice giving – both when you want it and when you don’t. I’d be curious to know what is the best advice your mother has given you?

Advice from my mom:

• Always thank people when they go out of their way to do something for you – even if it’s in a form of a quick email.
• Everything is a teaching tool and a learning device – any time life isn’t going the way I’d like it to I am reminded by my mom that there are lessons to learn in everything.
• Rejection is Protection – I’m not sure where my mom get’s all of her rhyming antidotes but this is one of her favorites. She says if you don’t get that job you want or that guy doesn’t ask you out again that rejection is protection and there is something better yet to come.
• Ask for clarity and courage – when I’m having a hard time making a big decision my mom advises me to pray for clarity and courage. She says it’s important to ask for the two together so that you can act on what shows up. For example if you’re in a bad relationship and deciding whether or not to leave, if you just ask for clarity chances are you’ll get 57 red flags in your face but if you don’t have the to courage to leave then the clarity serves no purpose.
• You must have the 4 Cs for a relationship to work (communication, compatibility, common interest, & chemistry) – she says if one of the four is missing your relationship will feel like a table missing a leg.
• The way you do one thing is the way you do everything – my mom uses this one very regularly. This statement is in relation to a person’s character.

Here are some from the comments at Women’s Health Magazine:

• Anything worth doing is worth giving your best
• Don’t EVER chase a man. Choose a man that makes you feel your best!
• Being single is better than any bad relationship!
• If you don’t like it, change it.

Your turn …

PS: Happy Mother’s Day!

It’s been a while since we’ve had a guest post in the advice series. This post was contributed by Dorie Morgan, who blogs regularly about navigating twenty-something suburban life.

I recently had the pleasure of applying for a new position within my company. And by pleasure, what I really mean is a brutally nerve wracking experience. The day before my interview for the position, I realized that not only did I have a five hour interview ahead of me but my five hours of interview fun were being crammed into one day, instead of the usual 2 to 3 day process. It was going to be a rough Wednesday.

The other tough part about this interview was that I was being interviewed by people that I have worked with day in and day out for a year and a half. Two of the interviewers were even hired after me. At first I thought that this could be a good thing. It would be a bit more of a relaxed atmosphere, they already know my work habits and they all have so much on their plates right now that it was possible that the interview could take less than its allotted time.

Wait a minute. They already know my work habits. Good, bad or neurotic, there was no hiding from that now.

These are the people who watched me turn a donut into a Voodoo Doll last spring and leave it on a coworker’s desk because I was tired of him leaving have eaten food on the break room table. FYI: You can write on a powered sugar donut with an ultra fine tip sharpie but a thicker tip will clog with sugar much faster.

These are the people who know about my neurotic tendencies when it comes to creating systems of organization. They’ve seen my FranklinCovey planning system and know that it not only comes with me everywhere but is color coded by event.

But, these are also the people who know that I frequently come in on a Saturday morning to clear away nagging projects that I don’t want to think about at the beginning of the next work week (I like my Monday mornings to be fresh, clean and pretty).

Who I am as a colleague and as a person were already out there on the table for my interviewers to experience.

Fortunately, no one asked me about the now infamous Voodoo Donut but they did ask me about how I developed my complex color coded planning system. It was still an exhausting day and I wouldn’t want to repeat it anytime soon. The upside to it all is that some of my colleagues now have a better idea of who I am and what it is I really do.

I still haven’t heard if I will be offered the position but right now, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.

One of the things that I love most about guest posts is that I’m able to have advice on topics that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to have input about. I have personally never had an internal interview. Have you? Was your experience similar to Dorie’s?

One of my favorite parts of running this ABC series has been choosing the guest writers for each post. When I decided to have R be for Relationship, I knew I wanted someone who could write about all aspects of relationships – family, friends, work, as well as dating. The first definition of the term relationship is usually linked to romantic relationship. We already had a post about dating, so I was wanting this post to cover a broader range. The person that I chose to write this post is Erica of Five Blondes, a blog written by Erica and her 4 blonde sisters. When I wrote to her asking if she’d like to participate this was my logic "I figure someone with 4 sisters knows about creating relationships with people."

This guest post was written by Erica, who blogs regularly along with her 4 blonde sisters at Five Blondes.

It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know.
Have you ever heard that?
I’m here to tell you that it’s completely true. My life is a testament to the fact! My job, my apartment, my fiance…none of these things would even exist if it hadn’t been for friends and family. Relationships help you get ahead in life, and can give your life structure and meaning. I would feel lost without my friends and family – wouldn’t you?

Although I’m only 25, I’ve known my boss for over 14 years (and we’re the same age!). How is that possible? We met in the fifth grade, both new students at a music school. We quickly became friends and remained close throughout elementary school and high school. We drifted apart a little after she got married and began her family – at the same time, she was starting a business with her husband. Just over a year ago, I noticed that their company was hiring. Feeling unchallenged by my call centre job, I thought to myself "it’s who you know!" Thanks to my longtime relationship with my friend, today I have a job I love and new relationships with great co-workers and clients.

Since turning 20, I’ve found that it has been easier to identify what relationships in my life are the most meaningful. I’ve traveled across the country and back and held nearly a dozen different jobs. My friends from high school have spread out across the country, making getting together a rare occasion. But the people who truly care about me are the ones I just can’t seem to get rid of – in the best way possible! They’re the friends who send notes every once in a while just to say hi. The cousins I see only once a year – but when I do see them, it feels like we were never apart. It is said that true friends are hard to find – I also think they’re hard to lose.

When it comes to your relationships with your family members, it might take a long time for you to recognize the true value in them. As is normal when siblings are growing up, my sisters and I fought. A lot. It wasn’t until they began moving away from home for university and for their own twenty-something adventures that I realized just how special they are to me, and how important it is for them to be a part of my life. Like fine wine, relationships only get better with age – I can’t wait for the future!

i·den·ti·ty
–noun
1. The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known.
2. The distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; individuality.

The struggle of finding who you are is very common in your twenties. Trying to fit into the career world is a big part of figuring out who we are. For many twentysomethings their career becomes their identity. This is why choosing a career, or making a career change, can be so stressful. Your twenties are the time that you decide who you want to be and who you want to become.

Penelope Trunk frequently writes about finding yourself and how that can affect your success in career. I am honored to have Penelope share her wisdom with us GenPinkers.

This guest post was written by Penelope Trunk, a career columnist at the Boston Globe, who provides advice at the intersection of work and life on her blog Brazen Careerist.

I learn the most about identity when I’m lost and I have to make a tough career decisions. Here’s the first time it happened:

When I graduated from college, I knew I wanted to play professional beach volleyball, but I was actually in Chicago, being a bike messenger in the snow, and I had no idea how I was going to get enough money to get to Los Angeles.

So I answered an ad someone ran for posing nude. I thought I could do it and get enough cash to get to LA. I went to the guy’s apartment. Insane, right? You are thinking this was not a safe move. I know. But I was young and sheltered, and I had never been faced with the problem of not having money.

I knocked.

The guy opened his door, and while I was still standing in his hallway he said, "Nice legs. But I can look at you and see this isn’t going to work."

I said, "Huh?"

"Well. What can you do? You can’t just stand there. That won’t work."

"What should I do?"

"See. I told you this won’t work."

He told me to stand on my toes and toss my hair.

I couldn’t do it.

He told me to practice and then come back.

On my way home, I thought. "That guy sucks. And I should be in Playboy. In the centerfold. I could do a great job at the written interview."

But by the time I got home, I was thinking how stupid it would be to spend my time figuring out how to get into nude modeling. That is only a stop-gap measure. Not a long-term way to make a living.

And I asked myself why I was doing that? Why wasn’t I doing something I’d be more proud of? I realized that the ways I choose to make money reflect who I am and how I see myself, and I need to start seeing myself as smart and clever. I always knew I was smart, but I didn’t present myself that way in the world.

That’s the moment I decided to switch. It seems obvious in hindsight, right? Of course getting paid to be smart is better than getting paid to be naked because it’s getting paid to be who I really am inside.

But we each struggle with this constantly, throughout our careers. How to figure out who we are inside and what career will be right for how we see ourselves now. It’s a constantly shifting alliance — what is our identity and what is the career that will reflect that.

Don’t be so arrogant as to think you do not consider such mismatched career moves for yourself as my nude modeling was for me. It’s very hard to find what career honors our identity. Identity changes as life changes And it’s hard to know what’s true to us at any given point. It takes a lot of vigilance and honesty and a willingness to shift when we’re totally off base.

I am currently in the state of making a career decision that has definitely made me question how my career defines my identity. My biggest take away from Penelope’s words of wisdom are remembering to have a willingness to shift.